Markey Bets on Democratic Machine While Gomez Talks NSA

By Annie Linskey -
Jun 19, 2013

A parade of Democratic stars is
marching through Massachusetts to galvanize support for U.S.
Senate contender Ed Markey, while Republican opponent Gabriel Gomez looks to Obama administration missteps to propel an upset.

The candidates, running to fill the remainder of Secretary
of State John Kerry’s U.S. Senate term, touched on their main
themes yesterday in a final televised debate before the June 25
special election.

“What is concerning to me is that you have all of the
scandals down in D.C. right now,” said Gomez, 47, at the forum
sponsored by the Boston Media Consortium, a group that includes
Bloomberg Radio. “The problem is people up here in
Massachusetts automatically distrust D.C. And why do they
distrust D.C.? Because you have career politicians that
politicize everything down there.”

Markey, a U.S. representative first elected in 1976,
stressed his Democratic credentials of supporting gun control,
protecting union interests and guarding Social Security in a
state where his party usually dominates.

“Gomez, he is backing the same old tired Republican
problems,” said Markey, 66.

A Gomez victory next week would erode the 54-46 Democratic
advantage in the Senate, where President Barack Obama wants to
pass a rewrite of immigration laws, and give Republicans a boost
going into the 2014 midterm elections. It also would again
spotlight Massachusetts as the vanguard of shifting national
political attitudes reminiscent of early 2010, when voter
discontent helped Scott Brown become the state’s first
Republican U.S. senator since 1979.

Obamas Visit

Massachusetts Democrats, eager to show they are more
energized and focused than three years ago, have welcomed Obama,
first lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton,
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- as well as singer Carole King -- to the state for
separate events on Markey’s behalf. Vice President Joe Biden
visits for a rally on June 22.

A poll published June 16 by the Boston Globe put Markey 13
percentage points ahead of Gomez. It showed Gomez with a nine-point lead among unaffiliated voters, who make up about 53
percent of those registered to cast ballots. That edge is short
of the 2-to-1 margin he likely needs from that bloc to overcome
the more than 3-to-1 advantage registered Democrats have over
Republicans in the state, said David Paleologos, director of the
Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

Coakley-Brown Poll

Gomez can take heart, though, that in 2010, a Globe poll
put Democratic Senate nominee Martha Coakley up by 15 points
nine days before she lost to Brown, 52 percent to 47 percent, in
the special election to replace Ted Kennedy.

The poll showed other ways Gomez may benefit. The survey
showed that 40 percent oppose the National Security Agency’s
recently disclosed collection of telephone and Internet data,
which Obama is defending, while 25 percent support it.

In an earlier poll by Suffolk University, 50 percent said
they believe the Obama administration deliberately misled the
public about last year’s attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in
Benghazi, Libya, and 61 percent supported stricter limits on
federal power after it was disclosed the Justice Department
subpoenaed records from reporters.

“Clearly the Obama administration is struggling at the
moment,” said Jeffrey M. Berry, who teaches politics at Tufts
University in Medford, a Boston suburb. “Gomez is in striking
distance if there is some significant change. He needs a game
changer.”

Message Failure

Gomez has been unable to connect the national scandals to
the Senate race in a way that tips it in his direction, said
Spencer Kimball, a Republican pollster based in Springfield,
Massachusetts, who isn’t working for any candidate.

“That has been a problem for his entire campaign, finding
a message that will resonate with voters,” Kimball said by
telephone. “I think his outside chance is an ad that will
resonate with voters over the last week.”

Gomez has been outspent almost 4-to-1, according to Federal
Election Commission records. Markey’s campaign has spent $8.6
million since January, while Gomez’s total is $2.3 million.

Unlike in 2010, when local news was dominated by the
campaign to replace Kennedy, a Democrat who held the seat for
almost 47 years before his death the previous August, interest
in this year’s race has taken a back seat to other matters, said
Joe Malone, a Republican and former state treasurer.

Distracting Events

The Distractions include the National Hockey League
championship series being played by the Boston Bruins, the
murder trial of former mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger, and the
aftermath of the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Only 21 percent of voters tuned in for the first televised
debate earlier this month, according to a Suffolk University
poll. The second, which took place in Springfield, wasn’t
broadcast in the vote-rich greater Boston area.

“It is June and people have their minds on things other
than politics,” Malone said. Gomez, he said “never seemed to
get to the point where his base was electrified.’

Malone said Gomez, a native Spanish-speaker, missed an
opportunity by failing to reach out earlier to Hispanic voters.
“It looked like he was running a race geared toward white
voters,” he said.

The Republican, a private-equity investment manager and
former Navy SEAL who won his party’s primary in late April,
launched a “Latinos for Gomez” coalition just last week. El
Plantea, the state’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, later
endorsed Markey.

Insider Issue

Throughout last night’s debate, Gomez sought to highlight
Markey as a Washington insider. “You’ve had 37 years to get
results,” Gomez said. “You go down to Congress and nothing
changes.”

Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in
Washington, said Markey’s long tenure in office and his low-key
campaign style may make it hard to get his party’s supporters to
vote. “People don’t get excited about Ed Markey,” she said.

Democrats, as part of efforts to avoid another special
election defeat, began combating possible voter apathy by re-activating in January volunteers who had mobilized for
November’s general election. In that contest, Obama carried
Massachusetts with 61 percent of the vote and Democrat Elizabeth Warren defeated Brown in his bid for a full six-year term.

“We are going to have every person who voted in the last
three elections talked to three times on the phone and have
their doorbells rung three times,” Markey said in an interview.
“That is a real organizational effort that I think is really
going to pay dividends on election night.”

Turnout Figures

The challenge remains to maximize turnout in an election
featuring one race. In November, more than 3.1 million ballots
were cast in Massachusetts. In the January 2010 special
election, the turnout was less than 2.3 million.

Markey, whose candidacy has been described as “very
vanilla” by pollster Kimball and “lacking enthusiasm” by
Duffy, has stepped up his public schedule to include more
unscripted conversations with voters.

Earlier this week, he visited food trucks in downtown
Boston, where he enjoyed the “classic piadina” -- an Italian-style sandwich with prosciutto, arugula and tomato.

He took the occasion to recall a youthful job as an ice-cream vendor, as he sought to connect with a group of listeners.

“You know what I found, driving my ice-cream truck? People
were grateful that you were there,” he said.